Red Ring of Death

By: Sean Rowland

Description of failed experience with machines: Xbox 360, created by Microsoft, has a malfunction when it over heats and cause the system to crash. This tends to happen when you play for too long for one session or just from the console being over used. When this overheating occurs it is referenced by “the red ring of death” due to the light on the Xbox flashing red instead of the traditional green ring. After the Xbox receives “the red ring of death” the user must send in their Xbox and pay to get it fixed. This process is outlined below in the path without highlighted steps.

Illustration of Analyzed Process and Sketch of Proposed Intervention:

Description of Intervention: The proposed solution to the problem is to have a warning message that appears on the screen when your console is over-heating. While there already exists a fan in the console to help cool the Xbox down it still does not prevent the over-heating. The warning would let the user know when to let the console rest and cool down to prevent the issue. This message would have to be presented with enough warning as to ensure that the user has enough time to either finish their game or save and then shut down the Xbox. This proposed intervention is showed when deviating from the original path with highlighted steps above.

Design Process: With looking at the old process that resulted with the Xbox needing repair, I recognized where the problem takes place and tried to resolve the issue. By trying to prevent the red ring from appearing I thought what would stop the user from using the Xbox to allow proper cool time to save the Xbox. When playing Xbox you receive several messages stating things as low batteries in controller or friend requests, so by using the tools already in Xbox it would be easy to implement a process that sends a message before the Xbox overheats.

Reflection: When trying to come up with a process that would resolve the issue at hand it proved more difficult than I initially thought because it is a problem in my life that I am trying to solve. This was wrong because it seemed like most ideas I had developed seemed to have loop holes that I could not find at first due to my own biasness.